Columbia University
Accreditation Self-Study Design
Columbia University is scheduled for reaccreditation in 2005-06. We propose that the
review focus on our Ph.D. programs, which are undergoing a period of significant enhancement,
and that the visit of the external review team take place in March 2006. The review would cover
all of the Ph.D. programs offered by the University, with the exception of those at Teachers
College which is an affiliated institution that is accredited separately by the Commission on
Higher Education. In addition, we propose that the document review be separated from the
focused review on Ph.D. education, that it concentrate primarily on the programs in the Arts and
Sciences, and that it occur in September 2005. Attached, as Appendix A, is a proposed schedule
for the preparations for the University’s accreditation review.
Those preparations will be guided by the Provost of the University, Alan Brinkley, with
the assistance of a twelve-member Steering Committee that he will chair. The other members
are:
Paul Anderer, Wm. Theodore and Fanny Brett de Bary and Class of 1941
Collegiate Professor of Asian Humanities
Elizabeth Blackmar, Professor of History
Richard Kessin, Professor of Anatomy and Cell Biology: Associate Dean for Graduate
Affairs of the College of Physicians and Surgeons
Stuart Firestein, Professor of Biological Sciences
Morton Friedman, Professor of Civil Engineering; Vice Dean of the Fu Foundation
School of Engineering and Applied Science
Robert Harrist, Jane and Leo Swergold Professor of Chinese Art History in the
Department of Art History and Archaeology
Letty Moss-Salentijn, Dr. Edwin S. Robinson Professor of Dentistry (in Anatomy and
Cell Biology); Associate Dean of Academic Affairs of the School of Dental and Oral
Surgery
Gerald Navratil, Thomas Alva Edison Professor of Applied Physics and
Applied Mathematics
Henry Pinkham, Professor of Mathematics; Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and
Sciences
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Virginia Papaioannou, Professor of Genetics and Development
Stephen Rittenberg, Vice Provost for Academic Administration
It is anticipated that members of the Steering Committee will chair the subcommittees that will
be established over the summer. If any of the subcommittees are chaired by other faculty, they
will be asked to join the Steering Committee.
Most of the faculty on the Steering Committee who do not hold administrative positions
are current or former members of the Executive Committee of the Graduate School of Arts and
Sciences, which oversees Ph.D. programs throughout the University. The deans on the
committee have responsibility for administering the Ph.D. programs in their respective schools,
with the exception of Dr. Moss-Salentijn, who chairs the Education Committee of the University
Senate.
The Steering Committee’s primary responsibility will be to direct the preparation of the
self-study document on Ph.D. education and the organization of the site visit of the external
visiting team. While it will also serve as the forum in which issues arising from the document
review are addressed, members of the Provost’s staff will organize the actual collection and
indexing of materials for that review.
In addition to Provost Brinkley, two members of his office will play key roles in the
preparations for the University’s reaccreditation. Vice Provost Rittenberg will coordinate the
work of the Steering Committee and of the subcommittees it is creating and serve as the chief
draftsman of the self-study. Under his direction, Pearl Spiro, Assistant Provost for Academic
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Appointments, will collect the materials for the document review and index their contents, with
assistance from representatives of the schools and the relevant administrative offices of the
University.
The first section of this proposal describes recent changes in the doctoral programs and
why we consider this an opportune time for an external review of the direction in which they are
heading. It also outlines a set of issues on which we would like the advice of our colleagues on
the external visiting team and charges to the subcommittees that will conduct the analyses
necessary to prepare the self-study. In its second section, the proposal discusses how we plan to
organize the collection of materials for the document review.
Ph.D. Education
Columbia has played a central role over the last 120 years in the education of the nation’s
pool of doctorally-trained talent and, through those individuals, has exercised a significant
influence in shaping higher education and the conduct of scholarly and scientific research. The
University was a pioneer in doctoral education, opening one of the first Ph.D. programs in the
United States in 1880 and granting its first Ph.D. in 1883. Before World War II, it had one of the
largest enrollments of doctoral students in the country and awarded a disproportionate share of
the nation’s Ph.D.’s. While its Ph.D. programs continued to grow after the war, their dominant
position diminished with the rapid expansion of doctoral education at universities across the
country. Nonetheless, in the second half of the century, Columbia still graduated significant
numbers of Ph.D.’s in a diverse range of disciplines, many of whom went on to achieve
distinction in academia, research institutions, public service and the corporate world.
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The Ph.D. programs have also played a major role in shaping the character and culture of
the University. Their introduction was a milestone in Columbia’s evolution into a research
university. Throughout the 20th century, they accounted for a significant percentage of the
University’s total enrollments, and the University’s reputation for excellence rested in
considerable measure on their quality and the achievements of their graduates.
Only the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences can award the Ph.D. at Columbia. The
Graduate School is part of the complex of units that make up the Arts and Sciences and include
29 departments of instruction. Only half of the University’s Ph.D. programs are organized by
those departments or by inter-departmental doctoral subcommittees that draw upon the faculty
and other resources of several units within the Arts and Sciences. The rest are located in other
parts of the University. The Graduate School oversees those programs in one of two ways. For
educational purposes, it includes an additional 16 departments that belong to the Fu Foundation
School of Engineering and Applied Science and the College of Physicians and Surgeons, two
independent Faculties of the University that are statutorily, administratively and
programmatically separate from the Graduate School in all other respects. The Graduate School
supervises the Ph.D. programs in other independent Faculties through doctoral subcommittees.
Columbia has a total of 61 Ph.D. programs. Of these, 31 are in the Arts and Sciences
proper. The remaining 30 are directed by other schools and departments. Every Ph.D. program,
regardless of its location, requires the approval of the Executive Committee of the Graduate
School for Arts and Sciences before it can be offered. The Executive Committee oversees the
quality of programs after they are approved, and the Graduate School awards the degree to the
students who have successfully completed their requirements. In other respects, the programs
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outside of the Arts and Sciences are largely autonomous. The schools fund and administer them
separately and have considerable latitude in deciding on their organization, requirements and
content.
While Columbia’s Ph.D. programs are among the most outstanding in quality in the
country, they have experienced a series of academic and financial stresses in recent decades.
Some are external in origin; others have arisen from the manner in which doctoral programs
were historically funded. In addition, they have faced growing competition for the best graduate
students from similar programs at other universities.
Doctoral students in the sciences have been fully funded for over thirty years. Until
recently, in contrast, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences admitted large numbers of
unfunded or poorly funded doctoral students in the Humanities and Social Sciences,
subsequently offering only the most outstanding financial aid. As early as the 1970s, the
Graduate School sought to improve the financial packages it offered in those disciplines, but
progress proved slow and difficult due to its budgetary dependence on the tuition generated from
the self-paying students. As a result, Columbia continued to have a lower ratio of funded to
unfunded students, higher levels of attrition and a longer average time-to-degree among its Ph.D.
students in the Humanities and Social Sciences than most of its peers which moved more quickly
and completely to a system of full-funding in those disciplines. Additionally, the Graduate
School was unable to provide all of its Humanities and Social Sciences students with the
opportunity to teach -- an essential part of doctoral education -- due to their large numbers.
By the mid-1990s, the Graduate School found itself at a serious disadvantage in the
Humanities and Social Sciences in competing for the best applicants. Other financial factors
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exacerbated this situation. In the early 1990s, the University capped the amount of tuition
exemption it paid teaching assistants and other student officers of instruction and research as part
of an effort to contain rapidly increasing benefit costs. Subsequently, the federal Office of
Management and Budget forced the University to abandon altogether the practice of funding the
tuition of student officers of instruction and research as a fringe benefit, while the National
Institutes of Health limited the amount of money it would include in its grants for graduate
research assistants. The prosperity of the 1990s produced soaring housing costs in Manhattan
that priced apartments on the open rental market out of the reach of most graduate students.
They, therefore, turned to the University’s considerable but still limited stock of housing in
numbers that became increasing difficult to accommodate.
To meet the growing competition for graduate students, the Graduate School, with
assistance from the Mellon Foundation, introduced a system of multi-year fellowships in selected
departments in the Humanities and Social Sciences starting in the late 1980s. In 1997, it
extended that system to the rest of the departments in those divisions, thereby moving all of the
departments in the Arts and Sciences to a full-funding model. As part of the new model, all
students were also provided with the opportunity to teach. The new full-funding plan required
substantial additional investments by the University, and the Arts and Sciences in particular, in
the Ph.D. programs.
The new system assures almost all Ph.D. students of five years of funding that covers the
cost of tuition and health benefits and provides a nine-month stipend that is now $18,000. It also
includes two years of summer fellowship for students in the Humanities and Social Sciences.
Those in the Natural Sciences typically receive summer support equal to a third of their nine-
month stipend throughout their studies in the Graduate School. In the first year of the plan,
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students typically devote themselves to taking courses. As part of their educational program,
those in the Humanities and Social Sciences engage in teaching during the next three years
before receiving a final year of dissertation support. Students in the Natural Sciences are
expected to teach in their first year or two and thereafter to engage in research in the labs of their
professors.
All students in their first five years in the Graduate School, with the exception of a small
and decreasing number who are guaranteed four years of funding beginning in the second year –
currently 3 percent of the total, receive at least this package. Those who have outside
fellowships that provide higher amounts receive more. Students in the Humanities and Social
Sciences who teach in their sixth and seventh years also receive the standard funding package, as
do all students in the Natural Sciences engaged in funded research after their fifth year. While
the enhancement plan only covers students in the Arts and Sciences, many of the other schools
provide comparable or greater levels of support to the students in the Ph.D. programs they
administer, and the Executive Committee of the Graduate School is working with the few that
give less to improve their funding.
In addition to altering its system of funding, the Graduate School has implemented other
changes to strengthen the education of its Ph.D. students. In addition to guaranteeing that all will
have the chance to teach, the School has sought to ensure that they obtain the most from the
experience by improving the training they receive before they enter the classroom. It is currently
engaged in a similar effort to enhance the quality of the mentoring they receive from their Ph.D.
advisors. In consultation with the graduate students’ elected advisory board, the School has
worked with the University’s central administrative offices to improve services and benefits
ranging from expanded access to athletic facilities and longer loan periods for materials taken out
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of the libraries to better career services and affordable health insurance for spouses and children.
As part of a more general effort to provide affordable apartments for members of the Columbia
community, the University has added to its stock of graduate student housing through the
purchase of new units and the redesign of others for their use.
These changes are designed to strengthen the quality of doctoral education at Columbia
and our competitiveness for the best graduate students in the disciplines we cover. The Graduate
School of Arts and Sciences is planning to make further enhancements in a continuing effort to
achieve those goals in the near future. The University’s accreditation review, therefore,
represents an excellent opportunity to conduct a self-examination of the effectiveness of the
changes already implemented and those contemplated and to obtain the advice of colleagues
involved in doctoral education at other universities.
We propose that the accreditation review consist of a comprehensive review of how
Columbia organizes and delivers Ph.D. education. The specific topics we will cover in the self-
study include:
• the organization, size and funding of the Ph.D. programs
• recruitment and admissions
• the organization of the curriculum, including the role of teaching in the student’s
education and the qualifying exams
• doctoral research
• student life
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Among the issues we wish to address are:
• improving retention
• reducing time to degree
• determining the appropriate size of the Ph.D. programs
• improving the training students receive before they teach
• enhancing the quality of doctoral mentoring
• strengthening the relationship of the Graduate School with the other schools
participating in Ph.D. education
• reducing the organizational barriers to collaborative programs among different parts
of the University
• enhancing student services and creating a more cohesive graduate student community
The Steering Committee has decided to form four subcommittees to conduct detailed
examinations of these topics. They will be:
• Curriculum and training
• Mission and outcomes
• Organization and resources
• Student services
The Provost will appoint the members of the subcommittees, with the advice of the Steering
Committee. At least two members of the Steering Committee will be on each subcommittee.
One of them will serve as its chair. The remaining members will be chosen from among faculty
and administrators with interest or responsibility in the areas covered by the subcommittee. The
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Provost will also seek to include students on each. Each subcommittee will have at least ten
members. Their composition will reflect the broad range of disciplines covered by the Ph.D.
programs.
Subcommittee 1: Curriculum and Training
The Subcommittee on Curriculum and Training will focus on the structure of the Ph.D.
curriculum at Columbia and how well it prepares students to pursue careers in their chosen
fields. Among the topics it will address are these:
• Do the requirements the students must fulfill ensure that they receive a rigorous
education? Do they constitute realistic expectations, given the time within which the
students are supposed to complete their degrees and the resources available to them?
• Every Ph.D. student in the Arts and Sciences is expected to teach for a minimum of
one year; most teach more. Some of the other schools do not have a teaching
requirement as part of their programs, although individual departments within them
may encourage or require their students to engage in teaching. Should there be
greater uniformity across all of the Ph.D. programs with respect to teaching or, if a
limited need for student instructors in some schools makes that impractical, should
there be some other requirement that will enhance the communication skills of
everyone who receives the Ph.D.? Where students are expected to teach, does the
requirement influence the likelihood that the students will finish their degrees or the
length of time they need to do so? Do the programs provide adequate training before
placing them in the classroom?
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• Each student is expected to pass a series of qualifying exams. Do these adequately
measure the knowledge and skills the students are expected to acquire? Do they
predict student success after graduation?
• How effective is the current system of advising and mentoring, especially in the non-
sciences where students are less likely to have the frequent interaction with faculty
that their counterparts in the sciences experience? Does the current system provide
the type of one-on-one guidance that helps the students achieve the goals of their
programs while developing their ability to engage in independent, critical thinking?
The Subcommittee will not be asked to examine the content and subject requirements of
each of the 61 Ph.D. programs. However, it will be encouraged to look in detail at a sample
across the full range of disciplines those programs cover to obtain a fuller understanding of the
overall quality and effectiveness of Ph.D. education at the University. It will, in addition, pay
special attention to the comparative quality of the programs that are run directly by the Graduate
School of Arts and Sciences and those that are delivered by other schools of the University.
Subcommittee 2: Mission and Assessment
The Subcommittee on Mission and Assessment will examine the mission statements of
both the University and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. It will consider if they clearly
reflect Columbia’s goals and aspirations and if they provide the direction the University will
need in the coming decade to maintain the excellence and competitiveness of its Ph.D. programs.
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In addition, the Subcommittee will evaluate the means the University currently employs
to measure student learning in the Ph.D. programs and how effective those measurements have
been in promoting learning. More fundamentally, it will address the following questions:
• What does it mean to assess student learning in a doctoral program?
• How should assessment vary from one discipline to another?
• How do our measurements compare with those used by our peers at other research
universities and what can we learn from them?
• Are there practices currently in use at Columbia or at other institutions that could serve
as a model for the Ph.D. programs as a whole or groups of programs within similar
disciplines?
Finally, the Subcommittee will be asked to review how the data collected on student learning are
used to improve the Ph.D. programs and how the effectiveness of the feedback can be improved.
Subcommittee 3: Organization and Resources
The organization of Ph.D. education and, in particular, the manner in which students are
funded have changed in recent years. The Subcommittee on Organization and Resources will
consider whether those changes have achieved their stated purposes and whether additional
modifications would be desirable and affordable in light of the resource constraints under which
the Ph.D. programs must operate. In specific, it will ask:
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• Have they reduced time to degree?
• What effect, if any, have they had on attrition rates? Do they make it more likely that
the students will successfully achieve the goals of their programs?
• Do they enhance the competitiveness of the Ph.D. programs relative to those at
Columbia’s peers?
In addition, the Subcommittee will address other organizational issues arising from the
fact that even though all of the Ph.D. programs are offered through the Graduate School of Arts
and Sciences, the School does not directly administer and control each of them. While other
schools operate under the general supervision of the Graduate School, they have the flexibility to
depart from the model it has developed for its own programs, raising the following questions:
• How does the organization of the Ph.D. programs outside of the Arts and Sciences
compare with those within? Do the differences among them create variations in the
quality of the programs? Additionally, do they create issues of equity with respect to
the funding of Ph.D. students?
• Are the powers and resources assigned to the Dean of the Graduate School appropriate
for the role he is expected to perform with respect to the programs both within and
outside of the Arts and Sciences? How does his authority compare with that of the
deans responsible for Ph.D. education at other major research universities?
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Increasingly, Ph.D. education is expanding into areas that do not fit neatly within the
subject areas covered by individual departments and schools. The Subcommittee, therefore, will
also consider if there are organizational barriers to promoting interdisciplinary programs and, if
so, how they can be eliminated. In addition, it will assess how well the existing interdisciplinary
programs are managed and funded.
Finally, this Subcommittee will review the effectiveness of the consortial agreements
Columbia has with other universities in the area of Ph.D. programs and ask the question whether
it would be desirable to promote further collaborative programs with other institutions. If its
answer to that question is affirmative, it will also offer suggestions on how the University can
best achieve that objective.
Subcommittee 4: Subcommittee on Student Services
In decades past, the student services available to Columbia’s Ph.D. students were uneven
in quality and not always tailored to their particular circumstances or needs. Recognizing that
the support they receive outside of the classroom and lab has a significant influence on their
educational experience, the University has upgraded those services in recent years and plans to
make further investments in their improvement. The Subcommittee on Student Services will
contribute to that initiative by examining their current state, assessing the effectiveness of the
changes that have already been made, and identifying areas where additional attention is needed,
both in the short run and the long term.
The scope of the Subcommittee’s mandate will cover the full range of services Ph.D.
students encounter from the point at which they apply for admission to the assistance they
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receive in securing meaningful positions after they graduate and their contact with the University
as alumni. In particular, the Subcommittee will look at the following:
• Alumni services
• Career placement
• Computing and libraries
• Disciplinary and grievance procedures
• Health services and medical insurance
• Housing
• International student services
• Minority student services
• Recreational facilities
• Recruiting and admissions procedures
• Social and cultural life
• Student organizations
Student perceptions of the environment in which they live and study are a critical
measure of the effectiveness of the services they receive. As part of its work, therefore, the
Subcommittee will evaluate how the University measures levels of student satisfaction with
those services and uses the information it collects to improve them. It will also conduct a
comparative study of the services provided by peer universities, especially with respect to
housing, health care and insurance, and child care.
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Document Review
With 19 Faculties and 79 departments of instruction, Columbia is a complex institution.
Appendix B includes lists of the Faculties and academic departments. The organizational
complexity is greatest in the Arts and Sciences which has six Faculties, two of which are also
departments of instruction, and another 27 departments. Outside of the Arts and Sciences, there
are six independent professional Faculties on the University’s main campus on Morningside
Heights. Five are simultaneously departments of instruction; the Fu Foundation School of
Engineering and Applied Science includes nine academic departments. The Columbia
University Medical Center consists of five Faculties, two of which are also departments.
Another two Faculties in the Medical Center have, between them, 30 academic departments.
Two affiliated institutions, Barnard and Teachers Colleges, are Faculties of the University; the
latter is also a department of instruction. Both are accredited separately by the Commission.
Finally, Columbia has a significant number of interdisciplinary institutes, centers, laboratories,
and interdepartmental programs which cross Faculty and department boundaries. Most exist to
promote interdisciplinary research. Some also direct instructional programs under the
supervision of one of the Faculties.
Outside of the Arts and Sciences, the educational programs of the University’s other
Faculties are all accredited by specialized agencies. Lists of the Faculties and of their accrediting
agencies are included as Appendix C of this proposal. The accrediting standards of the
specialized agencies are consistent with those of the Commission on Higher Education, and their
periodic reviews are much more intensive and detailed than anything the Commission might do.
Therefore, we propose that the document review be limited to the Arts and Sciences and the
supporting central administrative services. For the rest of the University’s programs, we propose
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that we provide the Commission with the most recent accreditation letters as proof that they meet
the Commission’s accreditation standards.
The University will assemble documents that demonstrate that it meets the essential
elements of the Commission’s 14 standards of excellence with respect to the programs in its Arts
and Sciences. The assembled documents will be representative of the types of available
materials rather than exhaustive in scope. They will include printed and electronic documents;
policy statements, bulletins, handbooks, and reports; publicly available documents and ones with
a restricted distribution; and materials written for a variety of audiences, such as students,
faculty, administrative officers and committees, Trustees, alumni, and the general public.
Examples of the types of documents we will provide for the document review are included as
Appendix D of this proposal.
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Appendix A
Accreditation Time Line
Spring 2004 Steering Committee appointed
Subcommittees defined
July 2004 Submission of the Self-Study Design
Summer 2004 Start of the collection of materials required for the document review
Selection of the membership of the subcommittees
Early fall 2004 Subcommittees begin their work
Early fall 2004 Visit by the Middle States Liaison Officer
Late spring 2005 Reports of the subcommittees due
September 2005 Completion of the collection of the materials for the document review
Completion of the development of an index to those documents
Early fall 2005 Document review: Visit by 2-3 members of the external evaluation team to
determine the University’s compliance with the Middle States accreditation
standards
Fall 2005 Completion of Self-Study draft
Solicitation of comments on the draft from the University community
February 2006 Self-Study completed and distributed to the external evaluation team
March 2006 Visit by the full external evaluation team
Late spring 2006 Report of the external evaluation team due
Response of the University to that report
June 2006 Decision by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education on the
University’s accreditation
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Appendix B
FACULTIES AND ACADEMIC DEPARTMENTS
(Faculties are listed in italics; departments of instruction in regular type. Asterisks denote Faculties that
are also departments of instruction.)
Arts and Sciences
Arts and Sciences
Columbia College
School of General Studies
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Humanities:
Art History and Archaeology
Classics
East Asian Languages and Cultures
English and Comparative Literature
French and Romance Philology
Germanic Languages
Italian
Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures
Music
Philosophy
Religion
Slavic Languages
Spanish and Portuguese
Natural Sciences:
Astronomy
Biological Sciences
Chemistry
Earth and Environmental Sciences
Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology
Mathematics
Physics
Psychology
Statistics
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Social Sciences:
Anthropology
Economics
History
Political Science
Sociology
School of the Arts*
School of International and Public Affairs*
School of Continuing Education*
Morningside Professional Schools
Architecture, Planning and Preservation*
Business*
Engineering and Applied Science
Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics
Biomedical Engineering
Chemical Engineering
Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics
Computer Science
Earth and Environmental Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Industrial Engineering and Operations Research
Mechanical Engineering
Journalism*
Law*
Social Work*
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Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC)
Dental and Oral Surgery*
Health Sciences
Medicine
Basic Health Sciences:
Anatomy and Cell Biology
Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics
Genetics and Development
Microbiology
Pathology
Pharmacology
Physiology and Cellular Biophysics
Clinical Health Sciences:
Anesthesiology
Biomedical Informatics
Dermatology
Medicine
Neurological Surgery
Neurology
Obstetrics and Gynecology
Ophthalmology
Orthopedic Surgery
Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery
Pediatrics
Psychiatry
Radiation Oncology
Radiology
Rehabilitation Medicine
Surgery
Urology
Nursing*
Public Health
Biostatistics
Environmental Health Sciences
Epidemiology
Health Policy and Management
Population and Family Health
Sociomedical Sciences
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Education (Teachers College)*
Barnard College
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Appendix C
ACCREDITATION OF PROFESSIONAL SCHOOLS
Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation
Master Program in Architecture – National Architectural Accreditation Board
Accredited: 2001-2007
Urban Planning – Planning Accreditation Board
Accredited: 2004-2006
Graduate School of Business
American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business
Accredited: 1999-2004
Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science
Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology
Accredited to:
Chemical Engineering: 2004
Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics: 2007
Earth and Environmental Engineering: 2007
Electrical Engineering: 2007
Industrial Engineering and Operations Research: 2005
Mechanical Engineering: 2007
Graduate School of Journalism
Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
Accredited: until 2007
School of Law
American Bar Association and Association of American Law Schools
Last Accredited: 2004
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School of Social Work
Council on Social Work Education
Accredited: until 2006
School of Dental and Oral Surgery
American Dental Association Commission on Dental Accreditation
Accredited: 2002-2009
College of Physicians and Surgeons
Liaison Committee on Medical Education
Accredited: until 2009-2010
School of Nursing
New York State Education Department
Accredited: 2004-2012
Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education
Accredited: 2004-2009
Committee on Accreditation of Nurse Anesthetists Educational Programs
Accredited: until October 2008
American Nurses Credentialing Commission
Accredited: until August 2005
National Certification Board of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners and Nurses
Accredited: until April 2006
National Certification Corporation
Accredited: Yearly renewal, up to date for 2004-05
Mailman School of Public Health
Council on Education for Public Health
Accredited: until 2010
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Appendix D
DOCUMENTS THAT ADDRESS ACCREDITATION STANDARDS
1. Mission, Goals and Objectives
• Mission statement approved by University Trustees
• Mission statements from individual schools
• Self studies
• Strategic reviews
• Accreditation reviews
2. Planning, Resource Allocation and Institutional Renewal
• Budget process documents
• Self studies
• Strategic review procedures
• Strategic review reports
• Strategic plans
• Descriptions of monitoring mechanisms and reports produced by them
• Departmental review process
• Facilities plans and reports
• Descriptions of student services and initiatives for improving them
• Internal planning documents from schools
3. Institutional Resources
• Operating budget
• Capital plan
• Physical plan
• Audit plans, procedures and reports
• Development and alumni relations plans and reports
• Funded research policies, procedures and reports
4. Leadership and Governance
• University Statutes
• By-Laws for the Trustees
• By-Laws for the University Senate
• Stated Rules for Schools
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• Departmental By-Laws
• Descriptive information about the Trustees
• Conflict of Interest policies and procedures
5. Administration
• University Statutes
• Biographies of top administrators (including deans)
• Organization chart of University
• Description of administrative staff
• Human Resources policies and procedures
• Budget documents
• Bollinger’s public statements on the University’s mission
• Bollinger’s inaugural speech
6. Integrity
• Grievance procedures for students
• Grievance procedures for academic and administrative staff
• Affirmative Action Plan
• Conflict of Interest policies and procedures
• Student disciplinary procedures
• Rules of University Conduct
• Grading policies
• FACETS
• Recruiting and promoting policies for faculty, other officers and staff
• Compensation policies and procedures for faculty, other officers and staff
• University Statutes
• Policy on Intellectual Policy Rights
• Catalogs, viewbooks and other recruiting tools
• Student handbooks
• Annual Middle States profiles
7. Institutional Assessment
• Budget documents
• School planning documents/strategic review
• Student assessments
• Teaching evaluation guidelines
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8. Admissions
• Bulletins and catalogs
• Admissions packets
• Recruiting materials
• Financial aid packets
9. Student Support Services
• Advising policies and procedures
• Descriptions and analyses of central and school-based student services
• Information from Career Services
• Descriptions of athletics programs
• Grievance procedures
• Policies on record maintenance
• Policies on the release of student information
• Descriptions of Health Service
• Registrar policies
• Descriptions of Lerner Hall activities
10. Faculty
• University Statutes
• Faculty Handbook
• Criteria and policies for appointment and review of full-time and part-time faculty
• Research support programs, such as TFRP and FRAP
• Teaching Awards
• Conflict of Interest documents
• Curricular design documents
11. Educational Offerings
• Bulletins, catalogs, and other written materials
• Descriptions of curricular programs
• Self studies
• Reports and plans for academic facilities
• Reports on academic information resources and support services, including the
Libraries, AcIS and CCNMTL
• Descriptions of adult education programs
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12. General Education
• Documents on the Core
• Bulletins
• Student surveys
• Undergraduate Writing Program
13. Related Educational Activities
• Double Discovery/HEOP
• Degree and non-degree programs in Continuing Education
• Executive Programs
• Study Abroad Programs (e.g., Reid Hall)
• Distance or Distributed Learning (e.g., CVN)
• Consortial arrangements with other universities
14. Assessment of Student Learning
• Assessment plans
• Surveys
• Teaching evaluations
• Retention and attrition studies
• Alumni surveys/studies
• Career Services assessments of graduates
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